Grave Heart
by wouldtheywriteasongforyou
Summary: Hi, again. I'm Ariana. Won't you tell me your name? You know so much about me, yet I know next to nothing about you. Who are you? Why are you scrutinising my family so intently?


**Author's Note:  
Disclaimer: JKR is the HP queen.  
**

Written for the Hogwarts House Painting Competition "Easy" ; The Book Thief Competition "14. No matter how many times she was told she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment." ; Disney Character Competition "Jane Porter" ; Oh the Thinks you can Think Competition "Gertrude McFuzz"

Headcanon on how Ariana became a portrait...and maybe a Horcrux, too.

31 March 2014. Word Count: 1,186

**It's like I do not even exist.**

* * *

**Grave Heart**

[-]

Hi. My name's Ariana. I have two brothers and a mother and a father. Everyone in the village thinks we're such a perfect family. Mummy smiles and is the prettiest lady in the whole wide world. Daddy is our hero and saves us from the bad guys. Alby is smart and Abe is kind. They're all so perfect. I wish I were perfect, too.

(The nameless strangers forget to make a comment about me when they talk about my family. It's like I do not even exist.)

.

Hi. I'm Ariana. I like the colour yellow because it reminds me of sunshine. It's been awhile since I've felt the sun on my skin. Alby says my skin is too fragile to be exposed to the harsh rays of light. Alby knows best, of course.

You seem familiar; have we met before? I'm Ariana. Who are you?

.

Hello. Shh, you have to be quiet. Something awful happened in my family today. I don't know what, exactly, since nobody tells me anything. But Mummy's been crying even though she tried really hard to hide the tears from everyone. Daddy's gone. He didn't even say goodbye. Alby says he won't ever be coming back. He tried to say it nicely and quietly, but Mummy heard him anyway and she started to sob again. Abe shook his head at our older brother's tactlessness and let me pet his goat.

"It's all your fault, Ariana," someone says.

I try to identify who said that terribly mean comment. When I ask, though, everyone in my family gives me an odd look and says that I must be hearing things.

.

Hello, I'm Ariana. I am a happy girl living in a happy home with a happy family. I like Godric's Hollow - everything is so free and alive here. I don't have to pretend or hide anymore.

I'm not a Squib, despite what everyone else says. I can do magic just like Alby and Abe. I can wave a wand and make beautifully disastrous things happen. I can, I can, I can.

Why won't anyone believe me?

.

Hi, again. I'm Ariana. Won't you tell me your name? You know so much about me, yet I know next to nothing about you. Who are you? Why are you scrutinising my family so intently?

You're too quiet, but I can see all sorts of questions bubbling onto the tip of your tongue. You don't say a word, though, and I find myself to be strangely disappointed by your nonexistent response.

.

I'm Ariana and I'm fourteen years old. I've met Death before - have you? He's a very nice gatekeeper to the afterlife. He has let me return to Earth - not once, but twice now. However, sometimes he is cruel, and I don't understand how someone so nice could turn out to be the very same thing I hate the most.

Death preys on my father. He's the only constant company my father receives in that awful prison cell he is rotting away in. The knight in shining armour turned out to be a villain in disguise, but doesn't everybody know that my father was simply defending my honour? Don't they realise those Muggle boys are not the helpless victims but instead the bullying instigators?

The world isn't fair. Death comes into Godric's Hollow once again to teach me this lesson. I get mad at his intrusion into my happy life with my happy family in my happy home. He smiles back and snuffs out my mother's life like she is a candle flame that he can cease whenever he wants.

Two hours later, my brothers find me screaming at our mother's corpse.

.

Hi, I saved you a seat. We're in the first pew on the left. But who invited you to the funeral?

Mummy's funeral is nothing at all like she would have wanted. Once, she'd told me that she wanted to be buried wrapped in satin with roses mixed in with her cremated ashes. She wanted to float away in a river at the exact moment when night shifted into day. She wanted to be beautiful, even in death.

Later, Abe tries to talk to me about Mummy's death. He explains that she's gone like Daddy except we can't visit her like we can schedule visits to see Daddy. Abe tells me Mummy became an angel and that she's watching over me right now, forever and always.

Everyone else in the village avoids me even more than usual. Alby says he and Mummy isolated me from the world because they love me. Abe snorts derisively. Apparently, based on the whispers, I am the sole reason my mother is dead.

"It's all your fault, Ariana," sneers the same exact voice that I'd heard last time.

.

Hello. I'm Ariana Dumbledore. People pretend that they care about me, but we all know they really don't. If they truly did, they wouldn't hurt the person they love by abandoning them.

"I love you," Daddy had said the same day he'd left. He was the first one to neglect me.

"I love you," was the last thing Mummy told me before Death dragged her away.

"I love you," Alby promised as he bid Godric's Hollow farewell each autumn as he boarded the magical train leading to Hogwarts.

"I love you," Abe mumbles in his rare moments of sentimentality. He lets me help him tend his goats and never pushes me away. I like him the best, but still, it's not enough.

"I love you," you say, but you're the biggest liar out of all of them. I'll never believe you.

Our family isn't as perfect as we seem. It's a shame that no one on the outside bothers to look closely at our faults - perhaps they could've saved us from crumbling to pieces if they'd seen how weak we really were.

.

Hi. I think I know who you are, now. I saw your face in the portrait mirror during the duel between my brothers and Gellert. You were staring straight at Death. I couldn't decide if you were courageously brave or recklessly dumb. While I was distracted by my thoughts, the green light came out of nowhere, and there was nothing I could do to stop it from hitting you. It pushed you headfirst into the mirror and locked you inside.

And then, I can finally speak the words that my once-mute larynx could not vocalise.

"It's all your fault, Ariana," I say miserably with your voice - my voice - on the other side of the portrait hole while I look on at the wreckage the boys are creating. Alby is standing horrified over a girl's broken and limp body. It's _my_ body.

The spell killed me but it preserved my soul inside of the used-to-be-a-mirror portrait that hangs over the fireplace. And here, in this not-quite-dead place of existence, I wonder if the person in the mirror is real and I'm just a reflection of them. I realise, a little too late, that you have been me all along.

[-]


End file.
